Photo above: cupcakes from Kupcakerie’s Instagram page, used with permission
By Mark Woolsey
Those with a desire to pair artisan cakes/pastries with fine coffees should sit up and take notice. Kupcakerie, a 10-year-old bakery cafe concept that’s become a favorite East Point gathering spot is about to expand to Smyrna. After some additional buildout, co-owners Henry and Kascha Adeleye plan to hang out their shingle on busy Spring road not far from the Battery in late September. The location in a strip of stores is in its final steps of being prepped and will operate along the same lines as their southside spot.
Its website proclaims “made by humans” and indeed there is a varied selection of cupcakes with the human touch at their East Point location, running the gamut from well-known birthday party-type and company meeting creations to more exotic and even eyebrow-raising sweets. Breakfast items and grab-and-go lunches are also offered. And in addition to cupcakes, cakes and cake pops are also featured, some of them with pop culture themes.
Such bakery cafes are a robust growth segment of the restaurant industry.
The data processing site Ibisworld counted 9.112 bakery cafes in the U-S in 2025, a reported increase of 1.1 percent over the prior year. The magazine Barista Online says a lot of the popularity stems from the pairing of the two staples, with bakery and coffee-only places picking up the trend.
The concept started brewing (pardon the pun) when Henry’s wife Kascha began baking “from-scratch” cupcakes in their kitchen while teaching.-and taking them to Henry originally was just helping her with the business because I had a DJ company in college, so he had a little bit of business experience. Henry had become enamored. Of coffee shops. They eventually settled on the bakery café as a concept.
Having built a steady, loyal clientele in South Fulton, they looked to the northside, settling on Smyrna
“Smyrna is kind of a hotbed right now. A lot of young families are moving in there,” Henry says, adding that customer base, income levels and demographics also checked the right boxes.
In the flavor department, Henry says“The most popular ones we do every day. The other half we kind of rotate out.”
“But (its) anything from your classic like, red velvet, vanilla and we do strawberry lime into crazier flavors. Like we do a Mexican hot chocolate( which he says sells quite well), a pecan pie, Oreo.”
They also have a special cupcake that they offer each month. A recent month had them baking an unusual combination of goat cheese and cherries. In September, they’re offering horcha-cha slide, a vanilla cupcake filled with horchata pastry and topped with a perfectly sinful buttercream frosting.
What sets them apart, Adeleye says, is that everything is baked fresh every day.
“We don’t use preservatives. Like you’ll never have a day-old cupcake,” says Henry.
What doesn’t sell, he says, goes to various non-profit organizations and a church they partner with.
He says their baking techniques set them apart as well, Things like being careful to avoid over-mixing and having a knack of figuring on just when something’s supposed to come out of the oven.
Gluten free and veggie items are also on the menu.
As for coffee, they have a full line of espresso, cappuccino, mochas, matchas and expresso shots as well as lattes of various descriptions, such as caramel, hazelnut and vanilla.
Adeleye says all their coffees are locally sourced, coming from East Pole Coffee Company, a local specialty coffee bean roaster.
A large chunk of their business is in-person and local but they also deliver cakes within over a wide swath of metro Atlanta, ranging from Jonesboro on the south to northside Alpharetta.
“We’re kind of a neighborhood bakery so people can you know, (get) things to take home to have for parties at the house or something. But we also kind of deliver in the corporate aspect at well,” with cakes for department meetings, presentations and the like.
Delta Airlines is one of their biggest clients, he says, providing a sweet break from such functions as new-hire orientation.
“Everybody that’s worked at Delta has had our cupcakes,” Adeleye maintains.
Once open, you’ll find them at 2517 Spring Road, Suite 102.